Jane Wyman - Biography - IMDb Jane Wyman Biography Showing all 168 items Jump to: Overview (5) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (5) | Trade Mark (5) | Trivia (117) | Personal Quotes (35) Overview (5) 5' 5½" (1.66 m) Mini Bio (1) Jane Wyman was born Sarah Jane Mayfield on January 5, 1917, in St. Joseph, Missouri (she was also known later as Sarah Jane Fulks). When she was only eight years old, and after her parents filed for divorce, she lost her father prematurely. After graduating high school she attempted, with the help of her mother, to break into films, but to no avail. In 1932, after attending the University of Missouri, she began a career as a radio singer, which led to her first name change to Jane Durrell. In 1936 she signed a contract with Warner Bros. Pictures and that led to another name change, the more familiar one of Jane Wyman.

Under that name she appeared in "A" and "B" pictures at Warners, including two with her future husband, Ronald Reagan : Brother Rat (1938) and its sequel, Brother Rat and a Baby (1940). In the early 1940s she moved into comedies and melodramas and gained attention for her role as Ray Milland 's long-suffering girlfriend in The Lost Weekend (1945). The following year she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her role as Ma Baxter in The Yearling (1946), and won the coveted prize in 1949 as deaf-mute rape victim Belinda MacDonald in Johnny Belinda (1948). She followed that with a number of appearances in more prestigious films, such as Alfred Hitchcock 's Stage Fright (1950), Frank Capra 's Here Comes the Groom (1951), Michael Curtiz 's The Story of Will Rogers (1952) and the first movie version of The Glass Menagerie (1950). She starred opposite Bing Crosby in the musical Just for You (1952).

She was Oscar-nominated for her performances in The Blue Veil (1951) and Magnificent Obsession (1954). She also starred in the immensely popular So Big (1953), Lucy Gallant (1955), All That Heaven Allows (1955) and Miracle in the Rain (1956). In addition to her extensive film career, she hosted TV's Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre (1955) and starred in most of the episodes of the show, which ran for three seasons. She came back to the big screen in Holiday for Lovers (1959), Pollyanna (1960) and her final film, How to Commit Marriage (1969). Although off the big screen, she became a presence on the small screen and starred in two made-for-TV movies, including The Incredible Journey of Doctor Meg Laurel (1979).

In early 1981, in the 49th year of her career, she won the role of conniving matriarch Angela Channing Erikson Stavros Agretti in the movie "The Vintage Years", which was the unaired pilot for the prime-time soap opera Falcon Crest (1981), later in the year. For nine seasons she played that character in a way that virtually no other actress could have done, and became the moral center of the show. The show was a ratings winner from its debut in 1981, and made stars out of her fellow cast members Robert Foxworth , Lorenzo Lamas , Abby Dalton and Susan Sullivan . At the end of the first season the storyline had her being informed that her evil son, played by David Selby , had inherited 50% of a California newspaper company, and the conflicts inherent in that situation led to even bigger ratings over the next five years. Wyman was nominated six times for a Soap Opera Digest Award, and in 1984 she won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a TV Series Drama.

By the show's eighth season, however, she was emotionally drained and the strain of constantly working to keep up the quality of a hit show took its toll on her. In addition, there was friction on the set among cast members. All of these events culminated in her departure from the show after the first two episodes of the ninth season (her character was hospitalized and slipped into a coma) for health reasons. After a period of recuperation, she believed that she had recovered enough to guest-star in the last three episodes of the season (her doctor disagreed, but she did it anyway). She then guest-starred as Jane Seymour 's mother on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993) and three years later appeared in Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick (1995). In the late 1990s she purchased a home in Rancho Mirage, California, where she's still living in retirement. Her daughter, Maureen Reagan (who died in August 2001), was a writer who also involved herself in political issues and organized a powerful foundation. Also, she placed her 3200-sq.-ft. Rancho Mirage condominium on the market.

Jane Wyman died at the age of 90, at her Palm Springs, California home, on September 10, 2007, having long suffered from arthritis and diabetes. It was reported that Wyman died in her sleep of natural causes at the Rancho Mirage Country Club. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Richard Collins II (brothergaryii@yahoo.com) Spouse (5) Her hairdo, bangs over her forehead. Played roles that were either physically challenged or disabled. Usually played women who either become engaged or soon get married. Short stature Trivia (117) Her Best Actress Oscar for Johnny Belinda (1948) makes her the only wife of a future U.S. President ( Ronald Reagan ) ever to win such an award. Adopted mother of nationally syndicated radio talk show host Michael Reagan . Her name changed to "Jane Faulks" when she was unofficially "adopted" by the Faulks family, middle-aged neighbors of her single mother. Moved to So. California with Mrs.

Faulks when she was widowed in 1928 Several sources have given her date of birth as January 4, 1914, which would mean she was one of the first (and one of the very few) actresses to make herself older. She is a serious convert to Roman Catholicism, attending Mass with good friend Loretta Young . Apparently broke up with Ronald Reagan over her love for Lew Ayres , but that relationship failed in the long run. Mother of Maureen Reagan and Michael Reagan . Daughter, with third husband - actor/former president Ronald Reagan - Maureen Reagan dies of malignant melanoma (skin cancer) at her Sacramento-area home. [August 2001] Holds the record for the longest screen kiss, with Regis Toomey in You're in the Army Now (1941), at 3 minutes and 5 seconds. Before she was a successful actress, she was once a switchboard operator. Had taken a break on the ninth and final season of Falcon Crest (1981), during the third episode, due to the health problems she was suffering, but came back for the last three episodes of the series. Was a diabetic.

Was always good friends with Loretta Young . Has 2 stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Would never talk about Ronald Reagan in an interview. Daughter, Maureen Reagan , was admitted to the John Wayne Cancer Institute for malignant melanoma. [11 December 2000] Appeared in every episode of Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre (1955) and was nominated for an Emmy twice. Before she was a successful actress, she was a chorus girl. Was very good friends with: Julie London , John Forsythe , Barbara Stanwyck , Virginia Mayo , Rod Taylor , Dennis Morgan , Alexis Smith , Chao Li Chi , Bob Curtis , Bob Hope , Frank Sinatra , Sammy Davis Jr. , Dean Martin , Robert Conrad , Ernest Borgnine , Danny Thomas , Buddy Ebsen , Cary Grant , Robert Mitchum , Cesar Romero , Doris Day , Fernando Lamas , Arlene Dahl , Betty Grable , Carol Channing , Anne Jeffreys , Esther Williams , Ann Doran , Ray Milland , Loretta Young , Tony Curtis , Betty Hutton , Mickey Rooney , Aaron Spelling , Earl Hamner Jr.

, Larry Hagman , Barbara Bel Geddes , Howard Keel , Eddie Albert , Gavin MacLeod , Ann Sheridan , Eve Arden , Karl Malden , Abby Dalton , Ruta Lee , Claire Trevor , Fred MacMurray , William Demarest , Rosemary Clooney , Bing Crosby , Broderick Crawford , Rock Hudson , Leslie Nielsen , Johnny Carson , Merv Griffin , Lauren Bacall , Yvonne De Carlo and Agnes Moorehead . Replaced Gracie Allen for an evening of "The Burns and Allen Radio Show" when Gracie had a migraine. It turned out to be the only time Gracie missed their show in all the years Burns and Allen performed together. She would never talk about Ronald Reagan in an interview, but voted for him three times and attended his funeral. In Italy, most of her films were dubbed by either Lidia Simoneschi or Dhia Cristiani . She was occasionally dubbed by Rosetta Calavetta , Renata Marini , Rina Morelli or Giovanna Scotto . Was a close friend of USC School of Cinematic Arts professor Drew Casper. She attended Lafayette High School in St. Joseph, Missouri.

She dropped out of Lafayette High School, during her freshman year, and took on odd jobs such as a waitress and manicurist. She had 10 hobbies: landscape painting, golfing, dancing, collecting CDs, listening to music, playing piano, singing, philanthropy, reading and politics. Was the recipient of the Charles B. Harding Award in 1977, which was the highest national award given by The Arthritis Foundation. Began her career as a contract player for Warner Bros. in 1936. Her Falcon Crest (1981) co-stars, Susan Sullivan and Lorenzo Lamas , both went to visit her in the hospital, while the ninth and final season was filming. Her Falcon Crest (1981) co-star, Susan Sullivan , won the 1998 Jane Wyman Award at the Arthritis Foundation. Her father, Manning Jefferies Mayfield, died when she was only 5. In 1991, she received the Golda Meir Award from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel.

Wyman had appeared in almost every episode of Falcon Crest (1981) from 1981 to 1989, before she missed 16 episodes in the final season. Against her doctor's advice, she came back for the series' final three shows, for a total of 208 of the 227 episodes of the series. Lived in a retirement home in Palm Springs, California, before she resided at the Rancho Mirage Country Club, where she died. Was not the first choice for Angela Channing on Falcon Crest (1981). It was after her best friend Barbara Stanwyck turned down this part, that producers Earl Hamner Jr. and Michael Filerman immediately cast her in the role. Met Lorenzo Lamas 's father, Fernando Lamas , on an episode of Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre (1955), when at the time of filming, Lorenzo was a 3 month old infant. By the time Lorenzo Lamas was 21, he persistently auditioned for a co-starring role in the long-running TV series, Falcon Crest (1981), opposite Wyman, as her grandson.

His persistence paid off, and he won the role. Was a very good friend of Aaron Spelling . She appeared on both of his shows: Charlie's Angels (1976) and The Love Boat (1977). On an episode of Falcon Crest (1981), Wyman's movie The Blue Veil (1951), showed flashback scenes when her character reminisces about being told in the hospital that her newborn son had died. Was a spokesperson for the National Arthritis Foundation from the mid-1970s. Was hospitalized with a liver ailment and diabetes after she collapsed on the set of Falcon Crest (1981)'s ninth season. [20 February 1989]. Remained good friends with Susan Sullivan and Lorenzo Lamas during and after Falcon Crest (1981). Her parents were Gladys Hope Christian, an a doctor's stenographer and office assistant and Manning Jefferies Mayfield, a meal-company laborer. Was a staunch Republican.

Her best friend Esther Williams is the stepmother of Falcon Crest (1981), co-star, Lorenzo Lamas , whose father was Fernando Lamas , who married Williams on New Years' Eve, 1969, till his death in 1982. Ironically, Wyman, Lamas and Williams, knew each other for many years, before. She had been battling health problems for years, so producers thought they rewrote the scripts in such a way that her character didn't do most of the walking on the Falcon Crest (1981) set. Before she was a successful actress, she had lots of jobs, especially that of a radio singer. The first actress ever to have lots of name changes. After she took the name of Sarah Jane Fulks, she dropped her first name and used Jane, as her middle name, hence, she legally changed her name to Jane Durrell, however, she was asked to change her last name to Wyman, the same last name as her adoptive siblings - her mother had first been married to a Dr. Weymann. Began singing and dancing at an early age. The youngest of three children.

Future Falcon Crest (1981) co-stars, David Selby , Ana Alicia and Lorenzo Lamas were all being idolized by her, during childhood. Was born in the same city as Ruth Warrick . She died only 9 months before her Falcon Crest (1981) co-star Mel Ferrer . Was a heavy smoker for years. Former sister-in-law of Neil Reagan . Her ex-husband, Ronald Reagan , died of complications of Alzheimer's disease and pneumonia. [5 June 2004]. After her father's death and the divorce of her mother, she lived with her foster mother, when she was a little girl. Survived by two grandchildren and one adopted grandchild. Interred at Forest Lawn Mortuary and Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California, USA. Had met her first husband, Ronald Reagan , on the set of Brother Rat (1938). Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman had a daughter Christine who was born June 26, 1947 and lived 9 hours. After her retirement from acting, and long before her death, she attended other charity and honorable events, as well as the funeral of her best friends.

Wrote a soliloquy for the series finale of Falcon Crest (1981). Went into semi-retirement after she starred in two failed TV pilots in the 1960s and 1970s. Best remembered by the public for her starring role as Angela Channing on Falcon Crest (1981). Had relocated from Los Angeles and back to Saint Joseph, Missouri, in 1930, when young Jane was only age 13. Was also a friend of John Forsythe . Coincidentally, Wyman starred on Falcon Crest (1981), after Forsythe starred on Dynasty (1981), in the same year. She and Eddie Albert were best friends from 1938 to Thursday, May 26, 2005, when Eddie Albert lost his life. After her guest-starring role on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993), she retired from acting at age 76. Was reported that she also died of natural causes in her sleep.

Was supposed to reprise her role as Aunt Polly in The Adventures of Pollyanna (1982), but was unavailable, because she was under contract working on Falcon Crest (1981), hence, the role was ultimately given to Shirley Jones . Was buried as a third-degree nun [from an interview by Michael Reagan to Megyn Kelly on America Live (2010) on May 29, 2012]. After she won the Oscar, Jack Warner announced Wyman for "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Ethan Frome.' Vivien Leigh played the role in "Streetcar" and Warner Bros. never made "Frome.". Created the character of Angela Channing of Falcon Crest (1981), who also had no intention of letting her character become a sort of J.R. Ewing of the wine business who felt she was representing all women in business. She was also a very, tough character at first, but wanted Angela to show she was also capable of love. Was raised Roman Catholic. Her adopted son Michael Reagan had a recurring role on Falcon Crest (1981) with her.

Quit her hosting duties on Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre (1955), because she was exhausted from putting on a miniature movie once a week. Grandmother of Cameron and Ashley. She was the last surviving member of Brother Rat (1938). Acting mentor and friends of Lorenzo Lamas , Ana Alicia and David Selby . Jack Benny gave Jane her nickname of Minnie Mouse because he believed that she resembled what the Disney character would look life if human. Missed a lot of episodes in the last season of Falcon Crest (1981), because of the direction the show was going. Appeared on the front cover of TV Guide four times. On her retirement in 1993, she moved to Rancho Mirage, California, and lived there until she died. Of German descent. Jane Wyman was deceased on September 10, 2007. Her longtime friend, Merv Griffin , died on August 12, 2007, just 4 weeks before her. Resided in Santa Monica, California, from 1985 to 1993. Had missed two episodes of Falcon Crest (1981), because she underwent abdominal surgery at St.

John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California, just 3 days before her 69th Birthday. An adhesion on her intestine was removed there, making her surgery so successful. [2 January 1986]. When Sarah Jane was age 15, she landed a job as dancer in the chorus of Busby Berkeley's The Kid from Spain (1932) at MGM. Other dancers and unfamiliar actresses on the lot included Lucille Ball , Betty Grable and Paulette Goddard . Before Merv Griffin became a successful talk show host and producer, he worked with her, when he began his contract career at Warner Bros. in 1954. She studied music at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. Began her show Falcon Crest (1981) at age 64. Was a longtime friend of Eve Arden , who guest-starred alongside Wyman on Falcon Crest (1981). Now living in Palm Springs, California, in retirement. [April 2003] Was considered for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939). Her favorite comedienne was Betty Hutton .

Despite her divorce from Ronald Reagan , they remained close friends until his death in 2004. Worked with Fred MacMurray in both: Bon Voyage! (1962) and on My Three Sons (1960). Longtime friend of Dick Powell . She and Ronald Reagan both attended his funeral in 1963. The hardest scene she'd ever worked on was with Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend (1945). Met Aaron Spelling on Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre (1955), where the two became friends, until Spelling's death in 2006. Her children to attended boarding school. Was the 32nd actress to receive an Academy Award; she won the Best Actress Oscar for Johnny Belinda (1948) at The 21st Academy Awards on March 24, 1949. She was most widely known to be a very private and shy lady. Her ex- Falcon Crest (1981) co-star, Lorenzo Lamas , had said in an interview, Wyman was the grandmother he never had.

Lifelong friends of: Barbara Stanwyck , Fred MacMurray , Merv Griffin , Arlene Dahl , Esther Williams , Doris Day and Agnes Moorehead . She and her first husband Ronald Reagan had a stillborn daughter Christine June 27, 1947. When one of her Falcon Crest (1981) co-stars, Lorenzo Lamas , was bungling his lines, she cautioned him not to come to work, when battling drugs. Met Julie London , Virginia Mayo , Eve Arden and Lauren Bacall , when the five were under contract with Warner Bros. in 1949. Wyman was (by far) the longest-running member of the contract company, since she was 19. She brought along her old family and her old friends to the set of Falcon Crest (1981). To protect and prevent her health, she fell asleep early, before arriving to work early on the set of Falcon Crest (1981). When Wyman received the script for her starring role on Falcon Crest (1981), she was undecided about undertaking her character, so different from the self-sacrificing characters of her movie days.

When she married Myron Futterman, she wanted to have children, her first husband didn't. She would later divorce him, a year later. During the last season of Falcon Crest (1981), her character was hospitalized in a coma, in real-life, she was hospitalized, the year before the last season started. Jane Wyman | The Independent Oscar-winning Hollywood actress who was Ronald Reagan's first wife and later starred in 'Falcon Crest' Monday 10 September 2007 23:00 BST Click to follow The Independent Online Sarah Jane Mayfield (Jane Wyman), actress: born St Joseph, Missouri 14 January 1917; married 1937 Myron Futterman (marriage dissolved 1938), 1940 Ronald Reagan (died 2004, marriage dissolved 1948; two daughters deceased, one adopted son), 1952, 1961 Fred Karger (marriage dissolved 1955, 1965); died Rancho Mirage, California 10 September 2007.

The Oscar-winning actress Jane Wyman, who married the future US president Ronald Reagan when he was still an actor, was a prime example of a film star who paid her dues in the days of the studio system. As a contract player at Warner Bros, she appeared in more than 40 films before achieving star billing, two years after which she won an Academy Award for her moving portrayal of a deaf mute in Johnny Belinda (1948), which heralded a long career as a major star. Best remembered for films in which she suffered nobly, she also shone in comedy, and she could sing too – with Bing Crosby she introduced the Oscar-winning song "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening". The director Alexander Hall said, "That gal can do anything she sets her mind to; she is one of the most creatively versatile performers the screen has ever boasted." A new generation acclaimed her as the matriarch of the television series Falcon Crest. Her place in history is assured, since Reagan was the first US President to have an ex-wife, and though neither liked to talk about their marriage, many contend that he would never have become President had she not left him.

"I was divorced in the sense that the decision was made by somebody else," he once said. Wyman's early life is somewhat contentious. Records would indicate that she was born Sarah Jane Mayfield, daughter of Manning J. Mayfield, a labourer at a food company, and Gladdys Hope Christian, in St Joseph, Missouri, in 1917. Her parents, who married in 1916, were divorced in 1921, and Manning died the following year. Gladdys then gave her daughter into the care of Richard Fulks and his German-born wife, the former Emma Reiss. There seems to have been no formal adoption or name change, but when the child was registered for first grade at the Noyes School in St Joseph, Emma listed her name as "Sarah Jane Fulks". Wyman later revealed that she loathed school, but her spirited response to dance classes prompted Mrs Fulks to take her to Hollywood at the age of eight, but without success. "I was one of those blonde curly-haired kids and my mother thought I was destined for the movies," she recalled.

The couple returned home, and Jane later reflected, "I was raised with such strict discipline that it was years before I could reason myself out of the bitterness I brought from my childhood." She worked as a switchboard operator, waitress and manicurist before trying Hollywood again – she now had a contact, since her dancing instructor in Missouri was the father of the leading film choreographer Leroy Prinz, who gave her a spot in Busby Berkeley's The Kid from Spain (1932). For the next four years, she toiled in the chorus, occasionally getting a line of dialogue, and she can be spotted in College Rhythm (1934), Rumba (1935), King of Burlesque (1935) and Anything Goes (1936). Finally, she won a contract with Warners in 1936, on the recommendation of the agent and actor William Demarest. The studio is often credited with naming her "Jane Wyman", but some sources aver that the actress was briefly married in 1931 to a student named Eugene Wyman, while another explanation is that Mrs Fulks had been married before, and her first husband's name was M.F. Weyman.

Warners put Wyman to work with a string of bit parts – wise-cracking girl friends, telephonists, secretaries, chorus girls – that would lead to starring roles in "B" movies with, it seemed, little chance of rising higher, though Dick Powell, who starred in three films that featured Wyman, stated, "Janie had something you couldn't learn – presence." The director William Keighley reflected, "I was surprised big things didn't happen for the Wyman girl a lot faster than they did." William Demarest was to say of Wyman's lifestyle during those years, "She couldn't keep still for a second, loved nightclubs, dancing, singing with her friends. 'There's a lot of living to be done, and I'm going to do it,' she'd say." Her penchant for elaborate clothes and costume jewellery prompted gossip columnist Louella Parsons to call her "a walking Christmas tree". In 1937 Wyman married Myron Futterman, a dress manufacturer and divorcee with a teenage daughter, but the marriage lasted only a year.

Wyman was given her first leading role in a "B" movie titled Public Wedding (1937), and around this time she met a new contract player, the former radio sports announcer Ronald Reagan. She confessed later that she was attracted to the actor and flirted with him, but he would not consider a relationship because, although separated, she was still married. Demarest said, "She was far more worldly and experienced than he was, although she was three years his junior. I think Ronnie at first was somewhat bewildered by her fast come-on; then he started to like it, then her, and then he fell in love." Their relationship flourished during the shooting of William Keighley's Brother Rat (1938), in which they played a marine cadet and his sweetheart. Wyman and Reagan were total opposites. He was an outdoor enthusiast and an ardent Democrat who was soon involved in the Screen Actors Guild, fighting for the rights of contract players. Wyman was apolitical, stating, "When I first met Ronnie I was a nightclub girl.

I just had to go dancing and dining every night to be happy." By the time Reagan proposed to her – on the set of a sequel, Brother Rat and a Baby (1940) – Wyman had developed some interest in politics and athletics, and had even taken up golf, an enthusiasm she retained for the rest of her life. Meanwhile she had supported Alice Faye in Tailspin (1939) and starred as resourceful reporter Torchy Blane in Torchy Plays with Dynamite (1939). Wyman and Reagan were wed in 1940. Their daughter, Maureen, was born in 1941, and in 1945 they adopted a baby boy, Michael. While Reagan's career seemed to be going upwards, Wyman's followed its familiar pattern. "I'm queen of the sub-plots," she confessed. "For years I've been the leading lady's confidante, adviser, pal, sister, severest critic." Drafted when the United States entered the Second World War, Reagan was stationed with an army film unit in Culver City, where he was a personnel officer when not acting in training films.

Wyman toured military camps, using a talent for singing that she had rarely displayed on screen. Knowing that the studio had purchased the rights to the life story of torch singer Helen Morgan, Wyman campaigned for the role but was instead cast in support of Ann Sheridan in The Doughgirls (1944). Sheridan had become one of her closest friends, and commented, "Jane used to tell me that Ronnie was such a talker that he even made speeches in his sleep." Wyman's career received a boost when Billy Wilder asked her to read the screenplay he and Charles Brackett had fashioned from Charles Jackson's novel about alcoholism, The Lost Weekend, to be filmed for Paramount. She said, "I was so conditioned to think of myself as a comedienne, I was completely floored when Billy said he wanted me for the part of girlfriend to the hero." Brackett said, "We wanted a girl with a gift for life.

We needed some gusto in the picture." (He omitted to tell Wyman that both Katharine Hepburn and Jean Arthur had turned down the role.) Wilder and Brackett's adaptation omitted the hero's latent homosexuality, enlarged the part of the girl, and added an optimistic ending, but otherwise it was an uncompromising and brilliant study of a hopeless alcoholic (an Oscar-winning Ray Milland), with Wyman splendid as his down-to-earth sweetheart. "It changed my whole life," said Wyman, though she was still under-rated by her own studio and found herself cast as a chirpy chorus girl in a wildly inaccurate biography of Cole Porter, Night and Day (1946). Though release of The Lost Weekend was delayed for nearly a year – the studio had qualms about it, and the liquor industry offered them $5m to destroy the negative – trade insiders had seen it, and MGM negotiated to borrow Wyman for their screen version of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a boy's love for a fawn, The Yearling.

Its star Gregory Peck, who personally acted with Wyman in her test, told her afterwards, "You were wonderful", to which she replied, "Good God, don't act so surprised." When The Lost Weekend opened, critics displayed similar wonder. The World-Telegram referred to her "unsuspected talent" and The New York Times stated, "Jane Wyman assumes with great authority a different role." Her part in The Yearling (1947) as careworn Ma Baxter, who toils in the backwoods of 1870 Florida, required delicate shading in her portrayal of a mother who must have her son's beloved fawn killed because it is eating their crops. Wyman's performance was described by Life magazine as "beyond reproach". Wyman won an Oscar nomination and, though she lost to Olivia De Havilland in To Each His Own, her status as a star was now established, and she was soon to play the part for which many best remember her.

The producer Jerry Wald had persuaded Warners to buy the rights to a Broadway hit of 1940, Johnny Belinda, despite the studio's misgivings about a story in which a deaf mute is raped, has a child, then kills the father when he tries to take it from her. (Shortly before shooting commenced in late 1947, Wyman's second child, a daughter, had died a few hours after her premature birth.) Wyman learned sign language and lip reading for the film, but later recalled, "Something was missing. Suddenly I realised what was wrong. I could hear." She and the director Jean Negulesco decided that her ears should be blocked with wax to cut out all noise except percussion. Wyman's performance was beautifully modulated, avoided bathos, and won her a deserved Oscar against formidable competition (Ingrid Bergman, Barbara Stanwyck, Olivia De Havilland and Irene Dunne). Her acceptance speech was one of the briefest and most effective in Oscar's history: "I accept this award very gratefully – for keeping my mouth shut for once.

I think I'll do it again." She was accompanied to the ceremony by the actor Lew Ayres, who was rumoured to have consoled her during the shooting because of her marital problems. Reagan's political work and fervent campaigning for President Truman had strained their relationship, but when Wyman announced to the press, "We're through. We're finished. And it's all my fault", she was making it clear that it was her own decision to end the marriage. "I love Jane," said Reagan, "and I know she loves me. I don't know what this is all about and I don't know why Jane has done it." Shortly afterwards, Reagan was in London filming The Hasty Heart, and his co-star Patricia Neal later commented, "Although I was a young, pretty girl, he never made a pass at me. Of course there were splendid reasons. I was wildly in love with Gary Cooper and he was still in love with Jane Wyman." The couple's divorce became final in July 1949. Wyman refused throughout her life to talk of their marriage or divorce, claiming that it was "bad taste" to discuss such matters.

Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright (1950) took Wyman to London where she renewed a friendship with Laurence Olivier, who had won his Oscar for Hamlet on the same night she won hers. Hitchcock had personally asked for Wyman, but he was later to accuse her of getting out of character by refusing to look too drab compared to her glamorous co-star, Marlene Dietrich. The film's lukewarm reviews, though, were the fault of the director, who made a rare error of judgement by opening the mystery with Wyman's boyfriend (Richard Todd) relating an incident told in flashback (in an era when flashbacks were taken literally) though in fact he is lying. Critics were incensed by the perceived "cheating", and the film proved a box-office disappointment. The Glass Menagerie (1950), based on Tennessee Williams' lyrical play, also proved disappointing, though Wyman gave what The New York Times called a "beautifully sensitive" portrayal of Laura, a crippled girl who finds solace from loneliness in her collection of glass figurines. In 1952 Wyman had two contrasting box-office hits.

The first was Frank Capra's musical comedy, Here Comes the Groom, in which Wyman was teamed with her singing idol, Bing Crosby. The pair had relaxed fun with a novelty number, "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening", which Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer had written for an unrealised Betty Hutton musical based on the life of Mabel Normand. It was a complicated production number that took the couple through several sets as they sang, and Capra decided to record the song live, with tiny radios in the stars' ears so that they could hear the orchestra. The song won an Oscar, the stars' recording was a big hit, and Decca signed Wyman to a recording contract. Her co-star Franchot Tone said, 'Everybody got caught up in the fun Bing and Jane were obviously having together.' The producer Jerry Wald had bought the rights to a French film hit, Le Voile Bleu (1947), hoping to tempt Greta Garbo out of retirement to play a woman who loses her husband and child in the First World Warand devotes her life to being governess to other people's children.

When Garbo refused, he asked Wyman to take the role, in which the woman goes from home to home until, old and working as a janitor, she is given a surprise party attended by all her former progeny. It was blatantly manipulative, but Wyman brought dignity and conviction to her part. Variety called it "a personal triumph", and The Blue Veil won Wyman her third Oscar nomination, though she was up against two powerhouse performances, Katharine Hepburn's in The African Queen, and Vivien Leigh's (the winner) for A Streetcar Named Desire. The success of both Here Comes the Groom and The Blue Veil put Wyman into the year's top ten box-office draws, and she won two Golden Globe awards – as best actress, for The Blue Veil and as "World Film Favourite Actress of the year". Wyman rejoined Crosby to take a role planned for Judy Garland (who was not fit enough to do it) in Just for You (1952). Its brightest spot was another catchy duet with Crosby. Wyman was reunited with Ray Milland for Let's Do It Again (1952), a musical remake of a comedy classic, The Awful Truth.

Milland, usually sparing with compliments, said of Wyman, "She could sing and dance with the best of them and her comedy timing was top-notch. She inspired everyone around her to give their best, and she was very down-to-earth and democratic." Making the film, Wyman met Fred Karger, an assistant to the studio's music director, Morris Stoloff, and before shooting finished, Karger had become Wyman's husband. They were divorced in 1955, remarried in 1961, and divorced again in 1965. Wyman had to go from young woman to old lady again in Robert Wise's So Big (1953), the third screen version of Edna Ferber's novel. It proved popular, but not as much as her next film, another property filmed twice before, Magnificent Obsession (1954). In this, the first of a string of lush melodramas produced by Ross Hunter, wastrel Rock Hudson indirectly causes both the death of Wyman's doctor husband and then Wyman's blindness. Reformed, he becomes a surgeon and restores Wyman's sight for a tearful climax.

Most critics directed any praise they offered to Wyman's sincere underplaying, which won her a fourth Oscar nomination (she lost to Grace Kelly in The Country Girl). Directed by Douglas Sirk, the film was a huge money-maker, though it is less well regarded today than another film with the same production team and stars, All That Heaven Allows (1955). The latter, in which a widow falls in love with her young gardener to the horror of her selfish children and her conformist friends, was dismissed by most critics as just another piece of glossy kitsch, but is now perceived as a cuttingly perceptive attack on middle-class hypocrisy and the expectation that ageing widows should need nothing more from life than the country club and a TV set. It was not entirely original (My Reputation had tackled a similar subject a decade earlier) but Sirk's subversion of his material and use of colour made his film more than just a star vehicle. (In a celebrated shot, he has Wyman's face reflected in the glass screen of the television to symbolise her entrapment.) Fassbinder's Fear Eats the Soul (1974) was inspired by the film, though his ending was much bleaker.

In 1955, after starring with Van Johnson in the sentimental Miracle in the Rain, Wyman refused the role of Gary Cooper's wife in Friendly Persuasion, and instead became president of the company that produced the television anthology series Fireside Theater. Rechristened The Jane Wyman Theater, it featured a variety of plays, with Wyman starring in around a third of each season's 34 half-hour episodes, and ran until 1959. For the next 22 years, she made occasional guest appearances in TV shows such as Wagon Train and The Love Boat, and played only four more film roles, notably as Hayley Mills' stern Aunt Polly in Pollyanna (1960). Semi-retired, she enjoyed painting, golf and seeing her children. Her career, it seemed, was virtually over when in 1981, at the age of 64, she was asked to star as Angela Channing, wine tycoon, in the television series Falcon Crest. The "pilot" show left her with stringent demands. "Not only was Angela too mean and vicious, but she was just plain boring.

I wanted her to be an interesting character." When the former superstar Lana Turner joined the show as Wyman's sister-in-law, Turner's entourage and star demands did not sit well with Wyman, who displayed her power by having Turner's character killed off after one season. Falcon Crest ran until 1990, and by the end of the show's fifth season, the already-wealthy Wyman was estimated to be earning $3m a year (10 times Reagan's salary). When Reagan died in 2004, Wyman broke her long silence to say, "America has lost a great President and a great, kind and gentle man." Tom Vallance Jane Wyman, Ronald Reagan’s First Wife: 5 Fast Facts | Heavy.com Get Heavy's Top 5 News Stories Every Day We will never share your email address. Jane Wyman, Ronald Reagan’s First Wife: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know Published Updated 6:51 pm EST, March 6, 2016 6 Comments By Tom Cleary 6.1k Share Tweet Share Email Follow Jane Wyman and Ronald Reagan, attend an unidentified event in 1939.

(Hulton Archive/Getty) Before former President Ronald Reagan married former first lady Nancy Reagan, who died Sunday , he was married to actress Jane Wyman for eight years. Wyman and Reagan were married in 1940 and divorced in 1948. She was an actress, singer and dancer best known for her Academy Award winning performance in Johnny Belinda and from her time on the soap opera Falcon Crest. Here’s what you need to know about her: 1. She Was Born in Missouri & Began Her Acting Career in 1932 Jane Wyman in an undated photo. (Hulton Archive/Getty) Jane Wyman was born Sara Jane Mayfield in St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1917, according to her obituary by The Associated Press. “She grew up in a cheerless home in which her mother’s time was devoted to her seriously ailing husband. After the father died, Sarah Jane accompanied her mother to Los Angeles, where the girl tried to get jobs in the studios. There was no work for the snub-nosed teenager, and she returned to St. Joseph,” the obituary reads.

“She attended the University of Missouri, worked as a manicurist and switchboard operator, then sang on radio as Jane Durrell. When that career dwindled, she decided to try Hollywood again, began playing bit parts, and changed Durrell to Wyman.” Her breakthrough role came in 1937 in Public Wedding. She then starred in Torchy Palys With Dynamite in 1941 and You’re in the Army Now in 1941, in which she had the longest on-screen kiss in movie history: 3 minutes and 5 seconds, according to Cinema Spot. According to her IMDB.com page, she continued to act until 1993, when she made a guest appearance on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. From 1981 to 1990 she played Angela Channing on the soap opera Falcon Crest, her final major role. Click here to read more 2. She Had 3 Children With Ronald Reagan Before They Divorced American actress Jane Wyman holds her infant daughter Maureen Reagan on her lap in an undated photo.

(Mark Wilson/Getty) Jane Wyman married fellow actor Ronald Reagan in 1940, according to her obituary. She gave birth to their daughter, Maureen, in 1941. They later adopted their son, Michael. In 1947, a year before their divorce, they had a daughter, Christine, who was born premature and died a day after her birth. Wyman didn’t talk publicly about her ex-husband, saying in 1968, “It’s not because I’m bitter or because I don’t agree with him politically. I’ve always been a registered Republican. But it’s bad taste to talk about ex-husbands and ex-wives, that’s all. Also, I don’t know a damn thing about politics.” Reagan talked about her briefly in his autobiography, “An American Life,” saying, “That same year I made the Knute Rockne movie, I married Jane Wyman, another contract player at Warners.

Our marriage produced two wonderful children, Maureen and Michael, but it didn’t work out, and in 1948 we were divorced.” After his death in 2004, she said in a statement, “America has lost a great president and a great, kind and gentle man.” Wyman had previously been married to Myron Futterman from 1937 to 1938, and then twice married Fox musical director and vocal coach Fred Karger. Click here to read more 5. She Died in 2007 of Natural Causes at Her California Home Maureen Reagan’s husband Dennis Revell, her mother actress Jane Wyman and her daughter Rita Revell, walk towards the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament before the start of the memorial service for Maureen Reagan. (Getty) Jane Wyman died of natural causes on September 10, 2007, according to her obituary. She died at her home in Rancho Mirage, California, and was 90.

“I have lost a loving mother, my children Cameron and Ashley have lost a loving grandmother, my wife Colleen has lost a loving friend she called Mom and Hollywood has lost the classiest lady to ever grace the silver screen,” her, son Michael Reagan, said in a statement at the time. Jane Wyman, 90, Star of Film and TV, Is Dead - The New York Times The New York Times Movies |Jane Wyman, 90, Star of Film and TV, Is Dead Search Jane Wyman, 90, Star of Film and TV, Is Dead By RICHARD SEVERO Corrections Appended Jane Wyman , who won an Oscar for her portrayal of a victimized deaf woman in the 1948 movie “Johnny Belinda,” played a fierce matriarch in the 1980s television series “Falcon Crest” and was the first wife of President Ronald Reagan, died Monday at her home in Rancho Mirage, Calif. She was 90. Her death was confirmed by Jonathan Bernstein, a family spokesman. Ms.

Wyman started her movie career in the 1930s playing wisecracking chorus girls before winning the Academy Award and three other best-actress Oscar nominations between 1947 to 1955. She rekindled her star power in her 60s, playing Angela Channing, the domineering owner of a Northern California winery in “Falcon Crest,” which ran from 1981 to 1990. She had met Mr. Reagan in the late 1930s and appeared with him in the comedy “Brother Rat” (1938). They were married in 1940, had a daughter, Maureen, and then adopted a son, Michael, before divorcing in 1949. Continue reading the main story Ms. Wyman’s Oscar came for her sensitive performance in “Johnny Belinda” (1948), in which she played a deaf woman whose pregnancy resulting from a rape causes a scandal.

Archer Winsten, writing in The New York Post, called her performance “surpassingly beautiful.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story “It is all the more beautiful in its accomplishment without words,” he added. While preparing for “Johnny Belinda,” Miss Wyman studied at a school for the deaf for six months, learning sign language. She memorized the lines of the other actors and performed with her ears plugged. She also won praise for portraying a timid disabled woman in a 1950 adaptation of Tennessee Williams's play "The Glass Menagerie," opposite Kirk Douglas, and an Oscar nomination for her performance as a blind widow in the 1954 remake of "Magnificent Obsession," with Rock Hudson. Two other Oscar nominations as best actress came for her roles as a backwoods mother in “The Yearling” (1946), also starring Gregory Peck, and as a saintly nursemaid in “The Blue Veil” (1951), with Charles Laughton and a young Natalie Wood. Photo Jane Wyman in the drama Johnny Belinda (1948).

Credit Warner Home Video A capable singer — she sang on the radio in the 1930s — Ms. Wyman shared a hit record, “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening,” which she recorded with Bing Crosby in 1951 for the movie “Here Comes the Groom.” The song, a Hoagy Carmichael-Johnny Mercer composition, won a 1952 Oscar. Ms. Wyman was born Sarah Jane Mayfield in Missouri on Jan. 5, 1917, to Manning J. Mayfield and Gladys Hope Christian. Her parents divorced in 1921, and the next year her father died of pneumonia at the age of 27. Her mother then moved to Cleveland. Placed in the care of neighbors, Richard and Emma Fulks, she was reared in St. Joseph, Mo., and took their surname. She recalled a bleak childhood, remembering Mr. Fulks, a chief of detectives in St. Joseph, as a harsh disciplinarian. He died when Ms. Wyman was 11, and Mrs. Fulks then took Ms. Wyman to Los Angeles, where Mrs. Fulks had two grown children.

They returned to Missouri in 1930. But Ms. Wyman, intent on a show business career, moved back to Hollywood two years later and began working as chorus girl, eventually landing a job as a dancer in Busby Berkeley’s movie “The Kid From Spain,” starring Eddie Cantor. The chorus line included Paulette Goddard and Betty Grable. In his biography of Mr. Reagan, “Dutch,” Edmund Morris wrote that Ms. Wyman married Ernest Eugene Wyman in 1933, claiming to be three years older than her actual age, 16, on the marriage certificate. She divorced him two years later. Advertisement Continue reading the main story After several years of chorus-girl roles and bit parts, Ms. Wyman signed a $60-a-week contract with the Warner Brothers studio in 1936. Dropping Sarah, she took Jane Wyman as her professional name. She then embarked on a number of B-movie comedies, typically playing the fast-talking blond sidekick.

Increasingly recognized as a serious actress, though, she began getting better roles in the early 1940s, then had a breakthrough in 1945, in the Billy Wilder drama “The Lost Weekend,” winning praise as the patient girlfriend of an alcoholic (Ray Milland) who goes on a bender. The performance led to a series of leading roles, including the four nominated for Oscars. Ms. Wyman met Mr. Reagan the same year, 1938, that she divorced Myron Futterman, a dress manufacturer 15 years her senior, whom she had married in 1937. Mr. Reagan and Ms. Wyman were rising stars, and their romance and marriage were covered in the fan magazines. Photo Ms. Wyman in her role on Falcon Crest, around 1982. Credit Landov/CBS, via Photofest Their daughter, Maureen, was born in 1941. She died of cancer in 2001. They adopted Michael in 1945. Another daughter, Christine, died the day after she was born premature, in 1947.

The marriage ended in divorce in 1949, and afterward neither Mr. Reagan nor Ms. Wyman spoke publicly at any length about their years together. Michael Reagan, of Sherman Oaks, Calif., survives his mother, as do three grandchildren. In 1952, Ms. Wyman married Fred Karger, a band leader. They were divorced in 1954. She married him again in 1963, but that union also ended in divorce. Mr. Reagan was married again as well, to Nancy Davis, the future first lady, in 1952. In the mid-1950s, Ms. Wyman surprised Hollywood when she switched to television, becoming the host of “Fireside Theater” (later “The Jane Wyman Theater”), a dramatic series in which she acted occasionally. As a film actress, she also had roles as an impulsive drama student in “Stage Fright” (1950); an abiding wife in “The Story of Will Rogers” (1952) and a love-struck secretary in “Miracle in the Rain” (1956).

One of her last notable film roles was in the popular 1960 Disney film “Polyanna.” She also had a guest stint playing Jane Seymour’s mother on the 90s television series “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.” Ms. Wyman’s return to prominence on “Falcon Crest” coincided with the advent of the Reagan administration, and she was said to have tired of being identified as the president’s first wife long after their divorce. Her agent, Robert Raison, told The New York Times in 1981 that she wearied of being hounded for gossip about Mr. Reagan’s life with her. Advertisement Continue reading the main story But she broke her silence about him after he died in 2004, saying “America has lost a great president and a great, kind and gentle man.” In her later years she painted in oils, mostly landscapes, and for five years sold her works through a Carmel, Calif., gallery. She aided the Arthritis Foundation for more than 20 years and was its chairman for a time. Ms. Wyman was always proud of the roles that had brought her acclaim and was always on guard, she said, against roles unworthy of her.

“I don’t like all the sick pictures being made,” she said at one point late in her career. “I simply refused to play a prostitute, a drug addict.” “Nonexposure,” she added, “is better than appearing in the wrong thing.” Correction: September 12, 2007 Because of an editing error, an obituary yesterday about the actress Jane Wyman erroneously included a performance among those for which she received Oscar nominations. She was not nominated for “The Glass Menagerie.” The obituary also included other errors. She was divorced from Ronald Reagan in 1949, as noted elsewhere in the obituary, not 1948. Her film “The Yearling” was released in 1946, not 1947. And the surname of a critic for The New York Post who wrote admiringly of Ms. Wyman’s Oscar-winning performance in “Johnny Belinda” was misspelled. He was Archer Winsten, not Winston. Correction: September 19, 2007 An obituary on Sept. 11 about the actress Jane Wyman misstated the number of surviving grandchildren. There are three, not two.

Margalit Fox contributed reporting. A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B5 of the New York edition with the headline: Jane Wyman, 90, Star Of Film and TV, Is Dead. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman Get Married | World History Project Jan 26 1940 Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman Get Married In 1938, Reagan co-starred in the film Brother Rat with actress Jane Wyman (1917–2007). They were engaged at the Chicago Theatre,[35] and married on January 26, 1940, at the Wee Kirk o' the Heather church in Glendale, California. Together they had two children, Maureen (1941–2001) and Christine (born June 26, 1947; died June 27, 1947), and adopted a third, Michael (born 1945).

Following arguments about Reagan's political ambitions, Wyman filed for divorce in 1948, citing a distraction due to her husband's Screen Actors Guild union duties; the divorce was finalized in 1949 making him the only U.S. president to have been divorced. Source: Wikipedia Added by: Brandon samuels In 1938, Wyman co-starred with Ronald Reagan in Brother Rat (1938), and its sequel Brother Rat and a Baby (1940). They were engaged at the Chicago Theatre,[17] and married on January 26, 1940, at the Wee Kirk o' the Heather church in Glendale, California.[18] She and Reagan had three children; Maureen Elizabeth Reagan (1941–2001), Michael Edward Reagan (born March 18, 1945, and adopted by the Reagans.), and Christine Reagan (born prematurely on June 26, 1947 and died the next day). She filed for divorce in 1948; the divorce was finalized in 1949. Since Ronald Reagan is the only U.S.

president to have been divorced, Wyman is the only ex-wife of an American President. Though she remained silent during Reagan's political career, she told a newspaper interviewer in 1968 that this was not because she was: “ bitter or because I don't agree with him politically. I've always been a registered Republican. But it's bad taste to talk about ex-husbands and ex-wives, that's all. Also, I don't know a damn thing about politics. Jane Wyman Biography Jane Wyman Biography Claim to Fame: Actress (The Yearling, Johnny Belinda, Falcon Crest) DOB: January 5, 1917 Date of Death: September 10, 2007 Diabetes Types: Unknown Jane Wyman was born Sarah Jane Mayfield in St. Joseph, Missouri to Manning, a laborer, and Hope, an office assistant. In 1921, her parents divorced and one year later her father died unexpectedly from pneumonia at the age of 27. After her father's death, her mother moved to Cleveland, leaving Sarah Jane to be raised by her neighbors Emma and Richard Fulks, the chief of detectives in St. Jospeh.

The Fulks unofficially adopted Sarah Jane and she took their last name in their honor. In 1928, she briefly moved to California with Emma Fulks. They returned to Missouri and by 1930 Sarah Jane had begun a career as a radio singer. She called herself Jane Durrell and added years to her birth date so that she could legally work. At age 15, Jane dropped out of high school and moved to Hollywood, where she worked odd jobs before obtaining small roles in several films. When she was 19, she changed her name to Jane Wyman and became a contract player at Warner Brothers. Her big break came in 1945 when she was cast in Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend. It was after this movie that she was finally recognized as a serious and respected actress. In 1946, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Yearling. Two years later she won the Academy Award for her role as a deaf-mute rape victim in the movie Johnny Belinda. She was the first person in the sound era to win an acting Oscar without ever speaking a line of dialogue.

As an Oscar-winning actress, Wyman had the ability to choose higher-profile roles. She worked with such directors as Alfred Hitchcock and Frank Capra and garnered two more Oscar nominations. Wyman starred in her final big screen movie, How to Commit Marriage, in 1969. She made numerous appearances on television — including a role producing and hosting her own anthology series, The Jane Wyman Theater— but remained in semi-retirement for most of the 1970s. She made a huge career comeback in 1981 when she was cast as the scheming matriarch Angela Channing on the primetime soap opera Falcon Crest. The series ran until 1990. During that time, Jane was nominated for five Soap Opera Digest awards and for two Golden Globes. She won the Golden Globe in 1984 for Best Performance by an Actress in a TV series. After Falcon Crest, Wyman made one appearance on the television show Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, before retiring from acting permanently. Jane Wyman was married five times, twice to Fox film studio musical director and vocal coach Fred Karger.

Most notably, Wyman was the first wife of the future President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. They met when they costarred in the 1938 film Brother Rat and were married on January 26, 1940. They had one daughter, Maureen, and adopted one son, Michael. They also had a daughter named Christine, who was born four months premature and died a day after her birth. The couple divorced in 1949, before Reagan had run for public office. Neither person spoke publicly about their relationship after the divorce. Wyman remains the only person to have won an Oscar and married a future U.S. President. Wyman long suffered from both arthritis and diabetes. She was a great philanthropist for the arthritis cause. She served as chairperson for the Arthritis Foundation for several years and ran annual telethons for the foundation for 20 years. Jane Wyman lived many of her later years in seclusion due to her declining health. She died at the age of 90 in her home in Rancho Mirage, California. She was said to have died in her sleep from natural causes.

Reviewed by dLife Staff 04/14 Jane Wyman - Bio, Facts, Family | Famous Birthdays Famous Birthdays Capricorn ABOUT Movie actress who many came to know as the first wife of Ronald Reagan . Her credits include Falcon Crest and Johnny Belinda. BEFORE FAME While working as a struggling actress, she was also employed as a manicurist and a switchboard operator. TRIVIA Her role in Johnny Belinda won her an Academy Award, but she didn't have real success again until the 1980s, when she had a lead role in TV series Falcon Crest. FAMILY LIFE She married Ronald Reagan in January of 1940 and they welcomed their first child in 1941. ASSOCIATED WITH Jane Wyman, Reagan's 'Button Nose' - The New York Sun Jane Wyman, Reagan's 'Button Nose' Staff Reporter of the Sun | September 11, 2007 The actress Jane Wyman, who died yesterday at 93, had already been married twice before she became the first Mrs. Ronald Reagan. The match was unequal from the start.

He called her cutely "Little Miss Button Nose" and she dubbed him cruelly "America's number one goody two shoes." By the time the youthful Reagan arrived in Los Angeles from Tampico, Ill., Wyman was already an established Warner Brothers leading lady with all the usual Hollywood trappings: an imposing Spanish-style mansion, a reputation for being difficult on set, and a wandering eye. In Reagan she found a rare simplicity and honesty, qualities that some 40 years later would ensure his election to the White House. In retrospect, it is chilling to hear Reagan boasting of his newfound love: "I believe we belong together and that we will end our days together." There was little chance of that. Not long after they took their wedding vows, in 1940, Wyman was badmouthing Reagan to her friend the actress June Allyson. "Don't ask Ronnie what time it is because he will tell you how a watch is made," she complained. A daughter, Maureen, an adopted son, Michael, and a miscarriage later, the marriage was on the rocks.

When Reagan returned from testifying in Washington before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, he found Wyman had packed his bags and loaded them into the convertible she had given him for his 37th birthday. Brokenhearted, he drove to the home of his friend William Holden and bunked there for weeks, waiting for Wyman to return to him. Before long, Wyman went public that she was having an affair with her co-star in the film "Johnny Belinda," Lew Ayres, and even then Reagan acted the big lug, ready to take her back at a moment's notice. He blamed her genius for acting and getting too close to a role for the breakdown of their marriage. "The trouble is, she hasn't learned to separate her work from her personal life. Right now, Jane needs very much to have a fling and I intend to let her have it," he told sniggering reporters. The divorce, in 1948, came as a surprise to no one except Reagan. "I suppose there had been warning signs, if only I hadn't been too busy, but small-town boys grow up thinking only other people get divorced," he said.

"The plain truth was that such a thing was so far from ever being imagined by me that I had no resources to call on." Wyman would never have guessed it at the time, but her divorce from Reagan would guarantee her a place in American history. As the first wife of the first president to be divorced, she became an interesting anomaly, the first first lady we never had. More significantly, she made way for one of America's most applied and determined first ladies, Nancy Reagan, born Anne Frances Robbins in Flushing, Queens. A Reagan presidency without the untiring support and devotion of a doting Nancy is unthinkable ï¿½ just ask the chief of staff she edged out of the White House, Donald Regan. In addition, Wyman's contribution to American political history is that she, entirely unwittingly, contributed to the end of divorce being a deal-breaker for presidential nominees. Just as before John F. Kennedy being Roman Catholic was considered an insuperable inhibition to being elected president, so divorce remained an insurmountable hurdle, particularly in the GOP, the party of Christian vows and family values.

Reagan became such a firm favorite with conservatives after delivering what became known as "The Speech" in support of the failed presidential candidacy of Barry Goldwater in 1964 that the fact of his divorce became irrelevant, even among conservatives. At its peak, in 1980, divorce brought to an end about 40% of all American marriages. Since then, the proportion of marriages ending in divorce has slowly declined. Had it not been for Jane Wyman, the current Republican presidential lineup would be without its front-runners. There would be no Mayor Giuliani, divorced twice, married three times, currently married to a twice-divorced wife, Judith; no Fred Thompson, divorced once, married twice; and no Senator McCain, divorced once, married twice, currently married to a divorcee, Cindy. All three might raise a toast to Wyman. Eventually, Reagan and Wyman were reconciled, and she was prominent among the mourners at a 2004 ceremony held for the former president at the Ronald Reagan Memorial Library in Simi Valley, Calif. She came to blame herself, not Reagan, for the divorce that made history.

Ruminating on marriage, she said: "I guess I just don't have a talent for it. Some women just aren't the marrying kind, or anyway not the permanent marrying kind, and I'm one of them." Mr. Wapshott's "Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher" is published by Sentinel, an imprint of Penguin USA, on November 8. receive the latest by email: subscribe to the new york sun's free mailing list

Question: Which president was married to the actress Jane Wyman?
Answer: Ronald Reagan